Our Approach
• SSF takes a preemptive approach to trafficking
• We attempt to identify at-risk children and
provide sustainable assistance to them and their
families.
• We work at three levels (individual, family and
village) with the goal of strenthening families and
social infrastructure to protect children.
• SSF has identified far more at-risk children than
we can fully support. We focus on protecting girls
who are 10 or older because they face the
highest risk of trafficking.
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Our Interventions
• We have 2 interlinked programs:
Child Protection and Livelihoods.
• Child Protection includes a Protection Center,
Learning Center, and support for students and
their families in 13 villages.
• Livelihoods works in partnership with 250
households in three villages.
• We also respond to individual cases of violence
and abuse of children and women, including rape,
forced prostitution, trafficking and child labor.
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Where we work
â&#x20AC;˘ Kampong Speu Province, Cambodia

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Why Kampong Speu?
• The province’s proximity to Phnom Penh and
Sihanoukville, and the extreme poverty in many
of its villages make its residents extremely
vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking.

• High rates of unemployment, under employment,
food insecurity, malnutrition and high debts are
common.
• Educational opportunities are limited, escpecially
in rural areas. About 17% of schools have no
access to water, 12% have toiles and one-fith of
all classrooms have dirt floors.
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Why Kampong Speu?
• More than one in seven households is headed by
a single mother (15%).
• More than 40% of the province’s residents are
under 18
• About 12% of residents leave the province in
search of either seasonal or year round work
each year.
• There are only 31 public health centers. (1 for
every 24,000 people).
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Preach Bhat Village

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Finding Wanna
• While in Pchea Bhat village we came across our
first case of a girl who had gone missing in
Malaysia.
• Her name is Wanna and she is between 13 and
16 years old.
• Her birth certificate was altered to raise her age
to 18 by a village leader.
• She left for Malaysia on May 29, 2010
• She has not been heard from since.
• Her parents asked us to help locate her.
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Wanna

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More Cases
• As word spread from village to village that we
were assisting Wanna’s family we began
receiving complaints from other families.
• Within 2 months we had accumulated 26 cases,
but only 10 families asked for assistance.
• Eight cases involve missing girls and women.
• One involves a missing 18 year old male.
• One case involves a woman who returned from
Malaysia after one year without any salary.
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Companies and Recruitment
Practices
• The companies are Philimore Cambodia, T&P,
Eung Rithy Group, VC Man Power, CRT, and
Cambodia Labour Supply Ltd.
• The recruitment techniques range from radio
advertisements, to flyers, and appeals by local
authorities and brokers.
• The recruitment process is characterized by a
high level of deception and misinformation.
• Once the girls and women are in the training
centers communication with families is either
monitored or severed.
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Case 1 Returning from
Malaysia penniless and abused

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Case 2
Escaping a training center

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Case 3 Escaping from a
household in Malaysia

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Case 4 Trapped in a home in
Malaysia

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Our Actions
• SSF is working with other NGOs and
investigators from SISHA and Phnom
Penh Human Trafficking Police.
• We held a meeting between the famil
ies and the investigators this week.
• The families were terrified before the
meeting.
• We spent several hours reassuring
them that they would be safe.
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Our Actions

â&#x20AC;˘ They also became frightened during
the meeting when they realized the
extent of the problem.

â&#x20AC;˘ After the meetings they were more
trusting of the investigators and SSF.

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Conclusions
• Because we work inside the communi
ties targeted by recruiters we can
identify the social, economic and
familial dynamics that they exploit.
• We see the tremendous suffering,
fear and guilt of the families.
• We can act as a bridge between
investigators and families.
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Recomendation
â&#x20AC;˘ If the root causes of trafficking are
not solved, efforts to prevent will fail.